Nova: A New Web Framework for Erlang

68 points by taure 319 days ago | 32 comments

Hi Hacker News community,

I'm excited to share Nova, a new web framework built for Erlang, designed to make web development in Erlang simpler, faster, and more approachable. Nova leverages Erlang's concurrency, reliability, and scalability to create a robust yet lightweight framework for building modern web applications.

Key features:

* Lightweight and modular: Easy to integrate with existing Erlang projects.

* Built for concurrency: Harnesses Erlang's actor model for high-performance web apps.

* Developer-friendly: Simplifies routing, middleware, and template handling.

* Extensible: Supports plugins and custom integrations.

Check it out: GitHub: https://github.com/novaframework/nova Homepage: https://novaframework.org Getting Started Guide: https://dev.to/taure/getting-started-with-nova-1ioo/stats

We’re early in development and would love feedback from the community! If you’re an Erlang enthusiast or curious about building web apps with a language known for its reliability (think WhatsApp or RabbitMQ), give Nova a spin and let us know your thoughts.

What do you think about using Erlang for web development? Any features you’d love to see in a framework like this?

CollinEMac 319 days ago |

This seems like a tough sell when Phoenix is already so good. I'm struggling to see why I'd use this over that.

worthless-trash 319 days ago | |

Because its not elixir, its erlang. For those of us who dont do elixir, this fits the knowledge I already have.

taure 319 days ago | | |

Nova is also more close to beam so it can be used with elixir and lfe or other beam languages.

prophesi 319 days ago |

Not sure how this hit the front page without linking the actual project.

https://novaframework.org/

taure 319 days ago | |

Thank you. I missed to add a new line where the homepage is..

SoftTalker 319 days ago |

I will check this out. Are you familiar with the Nitrogen framework? I've used it a bit and quite liked it, but not sure it's really an active project anymore.

https://nitrogenproject.com/

Could you compare/contrast Nova to Nitrogen?

taure 319 days ago | |

We did a fireside chat about it a couple of years ago.

https://youtu.be/PgBzV1-E00k?si=sULVBvLsVPm2S3zl

lelele 318 days ago |

You could add it to this Awesome Erlang list: https://github.com/drobakowski/awesome-erlang?tab=readme-ov-...

azaras 319 days ago |

Why do you use Erlang instead of Elixir?

johnnyjeans 319 days ago | |

No rebinding, better fits the grain of the OTP, no AST macros. Last I checked, the debugging experience with elixir was pretty subpar. Erlang is also a fundamentally nicer syntax that I find a great deal more readable. I'm not really sure what the appeal of Elixir as a language is actually supposed to be, outside of people who have spent a lot of time writing Ruby code.

asa400 319 days ago | | |

Full disclosure: I started with Erlang, I get paid to work with Elixir every day, I love Erlang still.

Why someone might like Elixir:

  - slightly less crufty stdlib for a lot of the basic stuff (though we still use the Erlang stdlib all the time)
  - the Elixir community started off using binaries instead of charlists so everything uses binaries
  - great general collections libraries in the stdlib that operate on interfaces/protocols rather than concrete collections (Enum, Stream)
  - macros allow for default impls and a good deal less boilerplate, great libraries like Phoenix and Ecto, and the community seems to be pretty judicious with their use
  - protocols allow datatype polymorphism in a really nice way (I know about behaviours, they are also good)
  - very standard build tool/project layout/generators that have been there from the start (Erlang has caught up here with rebar, it seems)
  - a lot of high quality libraries for web stuff, specifically
  - convenience stuff around common OTP patterns like Task, Task.Supervisor, Agent, etc.

For me, I love the clarity and brevity of Erlang the language but I find Elixir a lot more pleasant to use day-to-day. This is just personal, I am not making a general statement saying Elixir is better.

> Last I checked, the debugging experience with elixir was pretty subpar.

Just curious, why is this? All of the Erlang debugging stuff seems to work.

klibertp 319 days ago | | |

> I'm not really sure what the appeal of Elixir as a language is actually supposed to be

Easy:

    - rebinding
    - higher-level OTP abstractions
    - AST macros
    - nicer, more readable syntax
    - (optionally) cleaner stdlib

(Assuming you're not trolling: you chose to focus on features that can only be judged subjectively, and therefore can only be discussed as preferences. It's ok to have them, but actively displaying them is a bit pointless. Objectively measurable features of both languages put them very close together, with both having slight advantages over the other in different areas, on average making them almost equivalent. Especially compared to anything non-BEAM.)

taure 319 days ago | |

We started with Erlang before Elixir was created and we still use it for everything we do.

This is more to have a smooth web framework similar to Phoenix but for Erlang.

You can also use Nova for elixir.

cmdrk 319 days ago | |

Not to pick on you, but there are always posts like this in every Erlang thread. One is not strictly superior to the other, and the BEAM community benefits from the variety IMO.

colecut 319 days ago | |

It seems he wanted to make an alternative to Elixir..

regularfry 319 days ago |

You've run into the same naming problem GM did with the Vauxhall/Opel Nova: "No Va" literally means some variant of "it doesn't go" in (at least) Italian, Spanish, and French.

jen20 319 days ago | |

While this is a nice story, it's not true [1] [2].

[1]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova

macintux 319 days ago | | |

If nothing else, perhaps this persistent myth helps reduce the naming conflicts when someone wants to use Nova.

NinoScript 315 days ago | |

As a native Spanish speaker, this sounds totally made up. Nova sounds like an astronomy word, like supernova. “No va” to me means something like “it’s not happening” or “the plans have been cancelled”. But it’s pronounced very differently.

bobbylarrybobby 319 days ago | |

And Uranus (when spoken aloud) means “your butt”. Is this really a big concern?

LtdJorge 319 days ago | | |

No, I’m from Spain and have never though about that "no va" thing. Nova comes from Latin AFAIK. It would be "nueva" in Spanish and "nuova" in Italian.

Edit: Uranus is Latin too :)

schonfinkel 314 days ago | | |

Future astronomers will rename it to "Urectum" to stop the stupid jokes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0czFnIvKOJY

- slightly less crufty stdlib for a lot of the basic stuff (though we still use the Erlang stdlib all the time) - the Elixir community started off using binaries instead of charlists so everything uses binaries - great general collections libraries in the stdlib that operate on interfaces/protocols rather than concrete collections (Enum, Stream) - macros allow for default impls and a good deal less boilerplate, great libraries like Phoenix and Ecto, and the community seems to be pretty judicious with their use - protocols allow datatype polymorphism in a really nice way (I know about behaviours, they are also good) - very standard build tool/project layout/generators that have been there from the start (Erlang has caught up here with rebar, it seems) - a lot of high quality libraries for web stuff, specifically - convenience stuff around common OTP patterns like Task, Task.Supervisor, Agent, etc.

- https://github.com/ninenines/cowboy/blob/master/src/cowboy_router.erl#L139-L144 - https://github.com/ninenines/cowboy/blob/master/src/cowboy.erl#L201-L205 - https://github.com/ninenines/cowboy/blob/master/src/cowboy_http2.erl#L487-L506